Mizuno Toshikata Kuchi-e

Toshikata was born Mizuno Kumajirō in 1866 in the Kanda district of Tokyo to a plasterer's family. Abt 1879 when he was about thirteen years old, his father, Nonaka Kichigoro, sent him to study with Yoshitoshi Tsukioka (1839-1892), but his father then removed him from Yoshitoshi's studio and sent him to a relative of his mother to earn his living as a painter of ceramics. However, in 1882 he returned to Yoshitoshi's studio.

Mizuno Toshikata belonged to a generation of Japanese artists, including Chikanobu Toyohara (1838-1912), Ogata Gekko (1859-1920), Kobayashi Kiyochika (1847-1915), and Tomioka Eisen (1864-1905), whose artistic careers were shaped by unfavorable historical timing. However, several were hired to illustrate literary magazines with wonderful Kuchi-e prints. Toshikata also published a number of series of bijin prints and genre scenes, featuring women and children.

After the turn of the century, Toshikata remained a well-known painter, printmaker and illustrator and is credited with raising the status of painters from the ukiyo-e lineage.

In 1887, on Yoshitoshi's recommendation, he succeeded Yoshitoshi as the illustrator at the newspaper Yamato shinbun, where he achieved acclaim. He worked at the Yamato shinbun until 1894. During the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895), he created a large body of work depicting battle scenes. His work is some of the best to be produced during that period. He died in 1908.

Mizuno Toshikata did not just do Kuchi-e, as the title of this book indicates, he also did great series of free-standing prints. The title serves to anchor him in time and the artistic development of Japanese prints, where the Kuchi-e gives a fantastic view into the Meiji society and its social issues.